U.S. stocks declined, after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rallied to a record, as investors awaited tomorrow’s employment data to assess the strength of the economy and watched corporate earning reports.

Sprint Nextel Corp., whose investors backed a takeover by SoftBank Corp. yesterday after an eight-month fight, is now preparing to use the firepower of its soon- to-be parent company to target Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc.

Big names such as AT&T are all sliding today on weaker than expected earnings and the durable goods number fell in March, the largest drop in seven months, thus seeming to stop a continued rally in the stock market before Friday's GDP release.

Apple Inc., after years of hyper growth that made it the world’s most valuable company, is starting to look more like a value stock, according to some analysts reacting to the iPhone maker’s financial results.